California Literary Review

Articles written for the California Literary Review:

• Oscar Leadup – Ladies in Film: Female Agency and Pleasure in 2010 Movies
  Posted on 23 Feb 2011 in Movies, Television, The Fourth Wall
  

  Helena Bonham Carter in The King’s Speech: behind every great man, there stands (or sits, ever so primly) a great woman. 2010 was not what you’d call a banner year for women in the real world. Gossip rags and TV offer ever more ways for everyone to look bad, but women in particular get a [...]

• The Great Music Videos Valentine’s Edition: “Days Go By” by Dirty Vegas
  Posted on 14 Feb 2011 in Movies, Music, Television, The Fourth Wall
  

  Happy arbitrary and consumerist holiday from CLR and The Fourth Wall! Richard Phillips’s album artwork is lovely. Dirty Vegas were basically a few-dance-hits-wonder, but if your one massive hit comes with a video like “Days Go By,” you win at awesome. Ten years ago, “Days Go By” soared onto pop radio and MTV’s after-school hit [...]

• Movie Review: Gnomeo and Juliet
  Posted on 12 Feb 2011 in Movies, Movies & TV
  

  Gnomeo and Juliet seems like a terrible idea. Due to smart writing and great character actors, the end result is more fun than expected. It may not hit quite the niche audience it was after—the subject matter is actually directed toward adults more than kids—but it deserves a round of applause for masterfully whipping cleverness out of its Elizabethan-era hat.

• The Weekly Listicle is Seeing Double!
  Posted on 03 Feb 2011 in Movies, Television, The Fourth Wall
  

  The Roommate‘s Minka Kelly and Leighton Meester. Fiction is perpetually preoccupied with doppelgangers–doubles or evil twins. See almost any David Lynch movie, the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King’s The Dark Half, Dostoyevsky’s novels, and even Back to the Future Part II for evidence of spooky (and sometimes humorous) duality. In doppelganger films, obsession [...]

• Movie Review: The Rite
  Posted on 29 Jan 2011 in Movies, Movies & TV
  

  The Rite is remarkably dull where its most obvious predecessor, The Exorcist, was sharp as a switchblade. The movie was “inspired by true events” and based on a book by Matt Baglia. Unfortunately either Baglia’s material left little wiggle room or screenwriter Michael Petroni is inept with dialogue.

• Movie Review: No Strings Attached
  Posted on 22 Jan 2011 in Movies, Movies & TV, Sex
  

  Studios are beginning to cater to the “hookup culture” people are wringing their hands about. The worst thing about No Strings Attached is its “teachable moment” ending: nobody’s capable of sex without feelings, didn’t you know?

• The Weekly Listicle: Not Your Average Romcoms!
  Posted on 14 Jan 2011 in Movies, The Fourth Wall
  

  We like our romcoms quirky. None of this, please. Romantic comedy in the last few decades is (I’m a little ashamed to say) not my thing. I can’t handle the Bullock, Aniston, Heigl, Garner, and Hudson characters: “Oops, silly me, I just fell down a flight of stairs and embarrassed myself in front of the [...]

• Credit Where Credit’s Due: “Dexter” Main Titles
  Posted on 05 Jan 2011 in Movies, Television, The Fourth Wall
  

  Welcome to The Fourth Wall’s newest blog series, Credit Where Credit’s Due, which will focus on memorable TV and film credit sequences. In particular, we’ll spotlight credits that excel in distilling the show’s or movie’s content into a few-minutes-long sequence, or main titles that have become an indelible part of media history. Sometimes the credits [...]

• Brilliant Character Actor Pete Postlethwaite Dead at 64
  Posted on 03 Jan 2011 in Movies, The Fourth Wall
  

  Rest in peace, sir. You may have known him as “that guy,” or “Kobayashi,” or “Father Laurence,” but you almost certainly recognize his face. Pete Postlethwaite, whose rugged features and bright, preternaturally piercing eyes made his face unforgettable, has died at 64 after a long battle with cancer. The prolific actor made three films last [...]

• The Weekly Listicle: The Best of Christmas on Television
  Posted on 23 Dec 2010 in Television, The Fourth Wall
  

  “A very merry Christmas, and a happy New Year, let’s hope it’s a good one, without any fear.” What is Christmas all about? Sure, this time of year means trees with blinking lights, wreaths of spruce and pine, Bing Crosby and Eartha Kitt on the radio, mashed potatoes and gravy at dinner. Christmas also means [...]

• Movie Review: TRON: Legacy
  Posted on 18 Dec 2010 in Movies, Movies & TV
  

  Disney’s sequel is an immense, vividly hued carnival for the eyes. What it lacks in smart dialogue and nuance—and it does certainly lack these things—it makes up for with astounding visual effects.

• Movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
  Posted on 11 Dec 2010 in Movies, Movies & TV
  

  Narnia is a world in which children’s voices are heard, in which the young acquire agency and power, where they are tempted by wickedness and able to make decisions for themselves. In other words, it’s unlike anything children experience in their real lives. The allure is clear.

• The Weekly Listicle: Winter flicks to make you shiver!
  Posted on 09 Dec 2010 in Movies, The Fourth Wall
  

  People watch movies for all kinds of reasons. We watch them to laugh, to jump, to be affected, or to learn. We watch the ones we love over and over again to relive fond memories. What films do best is make us feel. Watching a movie can cause elation, depression, fright, fury, repulsion, arousal, or [...]

• Movie Review: I Love You Phillip Morris
  Posted on 04 Dec 2010 in Gay and Lesbian, Movies, Movies & TV, True Crime
  

  The rest of the movie follows their dysfunctional love story through prison sentences, Corvettes, illnesses, mansions, and tribulations. The story is part Catch Me If You Can, part The Informant!, and part Get Real. Between bright spots in which Carrey showcases genuine emotion, the story cruises along at a jerky trot, sometimes comical and sometimes just a misstep away.

• Movie Review: Black Swan
  Posted on 03 Dec 2010 in Dance, Movies, Movies & TV
  

  Darren Aronofsky’s films (which include Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler) roil with striking, horrific imagery and raw performances. They’re movies that even movie buffs can’t watch frequently because they burrow between your ribs and clutch your heart.